


Rebel Sleep Deprivation

by ElfGrove



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Comfort, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sleep Deprivation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-02-28 10:15:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13269339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElfGrove/pseuds/ElfGrove
Summary: A quick Voltron ficlet based on Matt and Shiro’s reunion in Voltron Season 4.





	Rebel Sleep Deprivation

It was hours later when Shiro found him in one of the lounges of the Castleship, watching feeds filter across a giant viewport that felt luxurious after his past few weeks in the hidey-hole remains of a rebel base where Pidge had found him. He hadn’t quite found it in himself yet to be able to wind down yet. He couldn’t sleep. He was supposed to be decrypting and processing feeds for the Rebels. Some corner of his brain was still certain that meeting the Paladins of Voltron, learning that one of them was Katie, was a sort of sleep deprived fever dream he was going to break from at any moment. If it wasn’t real, sleep definitely meant it would end.

Shiro sat next to him on the couch.

A COUCH. WITH CUSIONS. _DOWN CUSHIONS._ Or some alien equivalent. Whatever. As insomnia-fueled hallucinations went, this was a nice one.

After all, he had been sure Shiro was dead.

Shiro bumped his shoulder playfully, the grin lost to Zarkon’s Empire playing across his lips as he mockingly echoed Matt’s first greeting back to him, “’Sir’?”

He laughed, willing to play along with his brain’s delusion. Maybe this was real. He wanted it to be real, but he was running up on day 7 without sleep and that seemed like a hard judgment to make just now. “Katie didn’t know we were close, and you were dead. I wasn’t sure how to—"

“Hey, no.” Shiro moved closer, putting an arm over his shoulders and pulling him in close as all humor drained out of his voice, “I’m not dead. We’re both here. We survived.”

_It couldn’t be real. Could it?_

His laugh sounded harsher than the one he’d given Katie earlier today, “Hale and whole, right?”

“Not quite whole,” Shiro’s voice was gentle, and he flexed metal fingers to draw his attention. “But alive, and that’s what matters.”

“The remains of the Kerberos Mission,” He let his head fall against Shiro’s shoulder, breathing in his warmth. What would he find when he work up this time? “What a mess.”

“We’ll find Sam too.”

He shook his head without raising it, “We don’t need to. I buried him myself.”

“Matt...”

“I couldn’t tell Katie. Even if this isn’t real, I couldn’t tell her I failed to save Dad.” He knew he was crying now, admitting that to Shiro, “Mass cemetery on some no-name slave moon a billion light years from Earth. He saved a lot of people, but I couldn’t save him.”

“Matt,” Shiro’s voice choked on his name, pulling him tighter into a hug, holding him close like he hadn’t had anyone do in months. Unless this was real, at which point this was more positive physical contact in the last few hours than he had in the entire year and a half since they’d been captured on Kerberos. He hugged back, holding on for dear life. He needed this to be real.

“I missed you, space-brother,” He half-laughed, half-sobbed into his best friend’s shoulder.

“I missed you too, space-bro.” Shiro squeezed him briefly, not relinquishing the hug, “We’re family. Always.”

“Yeah, we promised, right?” He felt the tears come faster now, his shoulders shaking in Shiro’s arms, “I’m gonna hate waking up from this one.”

“Nothing to wake up from,” Shiro’s voice was soothing, and Matt felt the last of his energy draining away. “We’re still going to be here when you wake up. Both Katie and me. Your family has you.”

“I wish,” He mutters, feeling his eyelids grow heavy, and he decides to give up the attempt to stay awake. It’s been a nice hallucination, dream, _whatever_. If its still there when he wakes up? He’ll deal with that then.

_He hopes they’re still here when he wakes up._

“You’re safe now, Matt.”

 


End file.
